Wicked Game
by EvieLK
Summary: When Jemima meets Harry, it's not love at first sight. The two form an odd, but strong friendship and think that will be enough. This is not a love story. It's one about trying to overcome the fear of losing control, about stepping out of your comfort zone and about being exactly who you want to be. It's also a little bit about masturbation. (AU)
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Jemima looked around the nearly empty Starbucks. Her fingers were freezing and she probably looked a right mess, with a red nose and eyes that had been running like crazy because of the wind outside. The only thing that could possibly fix the state of her, was a warm cup of coffee.

"Next!" Jemima heard the girl behind the counter say. She looked around and realized she was standing way too far away, the queue having disappeared in front of her without her noticing. It actually seemed like she was the only costumer left in the whole coffee shop.

"Oh, sorry!" she mumbled, hurrying forward. She ordered what she wanted, while the girl taking the order looked at her like she couldn't care less.

Jemima got her coffee in a paper cup and went to get herself some napkins and on the other side of the room. A guy, who by the look of it, worked there, stood right in front of them, fixing something. For some reason she hated to say that awkward "excuse me" and get in the way of what some stranger was doing. It was a weird thing she had, but it had always been like that for her.

"Sorry, can I just…" she almost whispered as she stood behind the guy. He looked over his shoulder, immediately moved to the side with an "Oh, of course!"

Jemima cast a quick, thankful glance at him and… Shit, he was gorgeous. Long, dark-brown hair, up in a bun at the back of his head, beautiful eyes and one of those cheeky, half-mouth smiles, with one dimple in the cheek. And he was really tall, but compared to her, everyone was.

Jemima grabbed a few too many napkins, quickly, but somehow managed to smash her hand onto the edge of the counter, really hard.

"Oh, fuck!" she let out, before she could stop herself. Charming.

"Ouch! Are you okay?" the guy asked, sounding actually worried. "God, that was not a good one."

"I'm fine, I'm fine", Jemima waved it off and noticed that she was actually not. She looked at the back of her hand and saw that it was completely red, but worse than that, it had a giant splinter in it.

The guy saw it too. "Hey, that's not fine. You've got something in there. Shall I take a look at it?"

"No, no!" Jemima protested, but at the same time, let him gently take her hand and investigate the damage. "Really, it's okay. I can take it out myself, at the table. It's fine. But thank you, anyways".

"Don't be stupid", he said, not realizing he had just called a costumer stupid. "You won't get that out yourself. So sit down over there by the window and I'll go check if we have something to get it out with."

He quickly marched over the room, with what seemed like just three long steps and Jemima went to where he had pointed, put her cup on the table and sat down. God, she really wouldn't be able to get that out of her hand by herself.

The guy returned. With a very sharp knife. Jemima stared, chocked, at it and shook her head.

"No! That's not coming anywhere near my hand", she protested.

"Sorry! I couldn't find anything else. And I think we may have to… you know, cut the skin open a bit. Unless you have one of those tweezers in your bag."

Jemima shook her head and realized he was right. She was just going to have to bite her lip and look the other way, while he operated on her hand. He sat down on the chair next to her and for the first time she saw the little nametag on his t-shirt. Harry.

He leaned forward towards her, put his heavily tattooed arms to rest on his knees and reached out for her hand. She put hers in his and made a little squealing noise, because of the pain. He held it up a little to study the wounded side.

"Yep," he said after a little while. "I'm sorry, but I have to cut the skin a little bit. And I sterilized the knife, so don't worry about that."

Jemima nodded. She knew the alternative would be to go to the hospital and do it, but that would take ages to get to and from there, sit in the waiting room and be quite expensive, for something that would take the nurse half a minute to get out. No, she would not go to hospital for a little wooden splinter in her hand. Instead, she was going to let the Starbucks-guy cut it out with a kitchen knife, in the actual coffee shop. Great.

"You ready?"

"Yeah, okay then. Do it."

He leaned in closer to the hand and she could feel his warm breath on her skin. As soon as he put the knife to where the splinter had gone in, she shouted:

"Wait, wait!" He immediately sat straight up and looked worried. "Talk to me about something else while you do it. I can't just sit here and watch it, in silence."

He laughed a little and put the knife back to the hand. "Okay, so… What's your name?"

"Jemima."

"Jemima," he repeated, like he was trying it out in his head. " That's a good name. Suits you."

"Same", she blurted out. "I mean, your name. Harry." He looked a little confused and she pointed to his nametag. "Good... good name".

She blushed. She was already making a fool out of herself, being awkward.

Harry smiled that half-smile and returned to the skin-cutting on her hand.

"So, how old are you, Jemima? When is your birthday? Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

She laughed a little and in the back of her mind noticed how deep his voice was and how slowly he spoke, like he thought about every word before he said them out loud. She decided she liked that, then asked: "Is this an interview or something?"

"No, you just told me to talk and I'm just making polite conversation, trying to get to know you. Getting a few topics out of the way quickly."

Jemima pushed the "getting to know you" part to the back of her mind as fast as she could. He could have meant nothing by that and if she tried to figure out what he meant now, she would forget to speak and look like a complete idiot. And then it would not matter what he had meant from the beginning, because there would be no way he would want to get to know her.

"Okay, okay," she said. "So, I'm twenty-three. My birthday is on the 19th of June. I have and older sister, Georgina. And well, her husband is like a brother to me too, so it kind of feels like I have both. How about you?"

"I am twenty-two, my birthday is on the 1st of February and I have an older sister. Gemma."

"Wait…" she paused as she tried to count what date is was. "That means today is your birthday!"

Harry laughed. "Spot on. But don't say it too loud, so Amanda over there will hear it. I don't want any fuzz over it or anything."

"I'll take it to my grave", Jemima said, pretending to zip up her mouth, lock it and throw way the key. "Bummer you had to work on your birthday, though"

"Yeah, I guess", he answered, not seeming that bothered. "But it's only my second week here, so I didn't want to ask for the day off. And I'm not planning to do anything, really. Probably just going to hang out with my flat mate and eat take-out."

Jemima wasn't that big on celebrating birthdays herself, so she understood completely. She nodded, even though he couldn't see it, with his eyes fixed on the splinter in her hand.

She was quiet for a minute, watching him work, trying to ignore the pain, before she spoke again. "So it's your second week? What did you do before that?"

"I just moved down here, to London", he said. "The guy I live with, Niall, finally convinced me. I'm staying on a fold-out bed in his living-room, while we look for something bigger, that we can rent together."

"How did you know him before? Is he from the same place as you or…?" Jemima ask.

"No, no. He's Irish. Very important, that. I'm from this tiny little village in Cheshire. Ever heard of Holmes Chapel?"

Jemima shook her head. Geography wasn't her strong suit and growing up in London, small villages in the countryside wasn't really something that stuck to her mind.

"I met Niall, about…" Harry counted in his head. "About four years ago, when I went to Dublin. Niall isn't from there either, so it's a total, very lucky coincided that we met. We clicked immediately and have kept in touch since then. And then he moved to London about a year ago and have pestered me to move down since then. He met some guys, started a band with them and apparently needed a singer and yeah… I finally gave up."

"Cool", Jemima said, and suddenly felt how not cool enough she was compared to this guy. She dreaded him asking her what she did for a living, even though she loved it. And sure enough, he asked:

"What do you do?" and actually managed to sound genuinely interested.

"I work in a bookshop in Notting Hill. And then I babysit two little kids a few times a week", Jemima said. It wasn't that she was ashamed of what she did, she had long ago accepted that she didn't really have the same interests as other people her age. It was just that when someone, especially a really good-looking guy who was apparently in a band and had tattoos all over his arms, asked her, she immediately turned into the extremely shy teenager who preferred books over people, that she had once been.

Jemima couldn't really tell if he said that just to be polite or if he actually meant it. However, she didn't have much time to wonder, because Harry suddenly made a triumphant noise and gently pulled out the splinter from her hand. He held it out to her.

"Look at this guy. He's huge Do you want to keep him, as a memorabilia of the day we became friends?"

Jemima laughed. "Yuck! No! And are we suddenly friends now?"

"Yeah, I think we are", Harry said, a little too confident. "I mean, this is one of the longest conversations I've had with anyone since moving here. Londoners are not easy people to get to know. And since I have a maximum one friend and three acquaintances here, I feel like you can show me some sympathy and at least give me a chance to be your friend. I did, after all, operate this out of your hand." He waved the splinter in front of her face again.

She pretended to sigh and roll her eyes, while she let him put a plaster on the cut. "Okay, then. Just because I feel sorry for you."

In that moment, the door to the coffee shop opened and about five teenage girls came in, talking loudly.

Harry looked over his shoulder at them, and quickly said:

"Well, it was nice to meet you, Jemima. I have to go help the costumers. Hopefully none of them will get hurt." He winked at her and smiled that half-smile again, as he stood up.

"Yeah, nice to meet you too", Jemima stuttered, suddenly realizing where she actually was. "And thank you for… this." She waved her hurt hand in the air.

He just smiled at her again and hurried behind the counter. Jemima felt a little sting in the pit of her stomach, as she picked up her cup of coffee and her bag. He had said they were new friends and had actually sounded sincere. But she knew she often had trouble reading into what people said and understand if they really meant it or not. Of course, she thought now, it had only been a joke. He didn't really want to be friends with her.

At the door, she turned around a little, to see if he notice her leave, so she could give him a little wave goodbye. But he was fully concentrated on what the girls at the counter wanted to order, so she went out the door, a bit disappointed, thinking this must have been her strangest and at the same time nicest Starbucks experience she'd ever had.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

As Jemima opened the door to Wilkinson family's home, Clara came running towards her and threw herself around her legs. The little girls had, no doubt, been looking for Jemima through the living-room window. Jemima leaned down and kissed the top of the curly, ginger head and hugged back as best she could, standing in that awkward position.

"Jemima!" Clara shouted. "Jemima, Freddie did a wee on the floor!"

"Oh, dear!" Jemima yelled, pretending to be chocked, when in fact, this was almost a daily occurrence. Diaper life was not one for one and a half year old little Fred. He ripped it of as soon as no-one was looking, which resulted in a lot of accidents.

"Jemima, what have you done to your hand?" Clara gasped, wide-eyed. She had just recently learned to say the name Jemima properly, which was quite an achievement for a three year old and she showed it off as much as she possibly could.

"I was in a coffee shop and got a little boo-boo. But it doesn't even hurt, not one bit." That was a lie, but she knew it would worry caring little Clara for the rest of the night if she told her.

Jemima took off her coat and shoes, took Clara's hand and headed downstairs to the kitchen, where she could hear the others.

Mr. and Mrs. Wilkinson, Thomas and Jeanine, were both doctors. The kind of doctors who have to leave their toddlers at home with a babysitter several nights a week. Jemima knew they were great parents, who loved their children and that they were obviously also really good at their profession and helped a lot of people. But sometimes she felt sad for Clara and Fred, who barely got to see their parents. She had taken care of them for over a year, since the first day Jeanine had to go back to work after having Fred. She loved the kids more than table to love her own child as much, when she had one.

When they came down to the kitchen, Jeanine was trying to feed a very upset Fred his supper. He obviously hadn't taken well to being forced to put on a diaper and trousers after his accident and his mother looked like she was doing about five things at once, including being figuratively halfway out the door on her way to work. Jemima gave her a little wave, since she was also on the phone, and took the spoon from her hand, to continue feeding Fred. Jeanine gave her a thankful look, kissed her on the cheek, mimed "Thank you", and kissed both of her children goodbye before she ran up the stairs.

Jemima, Clara and Fred played with little plastic princesses, had a bath (just the children, of course) and read four goodnight stories. After that, Jemima had to spend another hour, trying to get Fred to sleep. She suspected he had growing pains, because he had been upset a lot recently, when he was usually such a happy child, and her heart ached for him as he cried, not wanting to lay still in his bed. She wished she could do something for him, anything, and after an hour of hushing and hugs, she made him a warm water bottle and gave him and half a paracetamol, he finally fell asleep.

She sat down on the sofa, in the family room, right in the middle of the kids bedrooms, and picked up the book she was currently reading, from her bag. It was the new Marian Keyes book, and although it was over five-hundred pages, she had already read through half of it in only a few days. Jemima loved books. She genuinely loved them, deeply, almost the way you love your mother or sibling or something. It was that kind of love that was always there, always had been and would be. The kind that you didn't make a fuzz about, you just knew it was there and that made her feel safe. It wasn't just the stories in them, although that was the best part about most books. It was the way a new book smelled, or an old one for that matter. The different ways the pages could feel under her fingertips, the way it sounded when she opened a brand new hardback. She was very fond of the way the authors dedicated their stories to someone special and the first sentence of it all. It didn't matter that much what genre it was. Of course she had her favourites, but pretty much anything that ended up in front of her would be read.

Jemima sat on the sofa and read in the dim light, she didn't know for how long, until she heard a key in the front door. Thomas was home. She slowly got up, packed up the few things she'd had with her and went to greet him. He looked absolutely exhausted, his hair, as fiery red as his children's, stood in all different ways on his head. They did their usual hello, making some small talk about how the night with the children had been and if there had been any problems, both a little too tired to actually make full sentences. They said their goodbyes and then Jemima walked out into the cold, crisp night air.

When she got home, the first thing she did was throw her coat on the floor. Her flat was too small to not have things in their rights places, but she would take care of it tomorrow, she thought. She caught her own reflection in the mirror beside the door and made a face at herself. She looked a mess. Hopefully that had happened just on her walk home and she badly hoped she had not looked as much as a panda when she had been at Starbucks earlier. She made her way into the tiny flat, filled up the boiler with water to make herself some tea and sat down on the back of the sofa while she waited, which she only had to take one small step back to do. Yes, her flat was tiny, but she loved it. She had moved in last year, straight after everything had happened. She needed a new start, a new home, and this place was perfect. She had everything she needed; a small kitchen, a tiny table with one end screwed to the wall. A light blue sofa that was long enough for her to lie down on, with a beautiful little wooden coffee-table in front of it and a small TV. To the right of all that, was the big opening to the bedroom, which made the flat feel so much more big and open, than it would have done if there had been an actual door to where she slept. Now there was just a patterned, light curtain that divided the two rooms and that was almost always pulled to the side. The bedroom was almost as big as the living room/kitchen, which made it possible for her to have a small double bed, all to herself, a desk, where she occasionally wrote or did her make-up. She had it by the window, even though the only view from it was a plain, brick wall, about eight feet away.

She also had room for a huge bookcase and a wardrobe for the fairly few pieces of clothing she owned. Unlike other girls her age, she didn't care too much about what she wore. She felt most like herself when she had on a simple sweater or a striped t-shirt and skinny jeans. That and a few, small pieces of jewellery and she was sorted. She had also recently cut her hair, about an inch above her shoulder. A "friend" had said it would make her look like a ten year old boy, but Jemima didn't mind that much. She was okay with people not sexualizing her appearance and would not for the world not take that over feeling like herself. She had done enough of that in the past year to last her for a lifetime.

After Jemima finished her tea, which was a nightly ritual that she couldn't go to sleep without, she had a quick shower, standing in the ridiculously small bath that was inexplicably places in her tiny bathroom. It was made for practically sitting up straight in and wasn't ideal or comfortable at all for anyone over five ft. When she wasn't annoyed at it, she sometimes laughed a little, thinking how very much the person who placed it there must have loved themselves a bath, cramming that odd little thing in where it just wasn't supposed to be. But it was those personal, quirky things that made her love the flat so much.

After her shower, Jemima put on her most unflattering, comfortable pyjamas she owned and went to bed. Her mind kept wandering back to what had happened at Starbucks and she considered going back, but quickly decided she couldn't. It was best if she just avoided it completely from now on and she would be safe.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

It had been a week since The Starbucks Incident, as Jemima referred to it as. Not that she had told anyone about it, she just thought about it a few times over the next couple of days. She was unpacking a box of some new bestselling Swedish crime novel and placing them on a shelf, when she heard the doorbell behind her. With about twelve copies in her arms, she couldn't turn around immediately.

"Finally!" she heard a voice, almost shouting, behind her. She spun around, of course dropping half the books, which went all over the place.

And there he was. The Starbucks Guy. Harry. In her little bookshop.

"H… Hi!" she blurted out and actually remembered to smile at him.

"I found you!" he said, looking ridiculously happy. Jemima didn't think anyone had seemed so happy to find her ever before. Except maybe for the time when her mum had lost her in a mall and had been looking for her for hours, when she had just crawled into a little reading tent in a bookshop, when she was about six.

She must have looked confused, because he continued:

"I've been looking for you all week. You disappeared before we could exchange numbers or anything and I didn't know anything about you other than your first name and that you worked in a bookshop in Notting Hill. So I've been coming here about four days this week, after my shifts, to every single bookshop around, looking for you. But you were never in, like, in none of them and I didn't want to seem like a creep and ask for a Jemima in every single one, so… I've just been coming back, hoping to run into you."

Jemima was stunned, the only thing she could get out was: "What did you do that for?"

Harry pretended to have been offended. "Hey! I thought we decided we were friends. And you didn't come around the coffee shop again, so I had to get hold of you some other way. And like I said, this was the only way I knew how. Nice work, Friend."

Jemima blushed. Even though the Starbucks where he worked wasn't really around where she usually went, she had thought about going back there, several times a day, in the past week. But then she had stopped herself, when she remembered that he had probably just been joking about them becoming friends. Apparently he had very much not done so. "Sorry," she said, quietly. "I thought you were just joking."

Harry looked a little taken aback, but recovered instantly. "I never joke about being friends. Especially not with someone who has just gone through major surgery."

At that, Jemima couldn't help but loosen up and laugh. She really did like this guy and wanted to be his friend, and for some reason she couldn't really understand, he wanted to be her friend to.

"So…", he continued. "I had to find you, not only because I feel we could possibly become great friends, but also because I wanted to invite you to something."

Jemima felt herself become nervous again. As proven, he was a lot cooler than her and no, she didn't like parties. She said a little quick prayer in her head, to some unknown forces that could possibly decide what was going to happen next, that it was NOT going to be a party.

For the first time since he'd walked through the door, Harry actually looked nervous. "You know, that band I was talking about. The one that I now sing in. We have booked our first gig, in a small pub in Camden. I was wondering if you want to come. I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to or if you have something else. And we're probably going to be shit, so I'm sorry about that. If you do decide to come, I mean. We just need to invite lots of people that we know, so the place won't be completely empty and I only kind of know you, so…"

"I'll come", Jemima cut him off. Although it had been quite cute that he had become so nervous, since he seemed so confident the rest of the time. It was nice to see that he was actually human and had at least one insecurity. "Just tell me when and where and I'll be there."

"Really? You promise? Pinky promise?"

"Pinky promise", she said through a smile, and reached out to hook her little finger around his, which he was holding out to her.

Harry gave her an address and a time and she had to promise again that she would really be there. Pubs weren't really her thing either, but he had said it was a small one and she could probably handle standing in the back of one, watching them play. It would be fun, she told herself and pretended she was calm about it. It would be fine.

Three days later, at nine in the morning, Jemima stood in only her knickers, trying to decide what to wear that evening. She would have time make it home and change after babysitting, but she wanted to put something out, so she wouldn't have to rummage through her wardrobe later. She was already tired and felt like she was just running on her last extra fuel. That wasn't good.

After a while, she decided just to wear a simple, white and dark-green t-shirt, black jeans and boots. It was, after all, a gig in a pub. And she wasn't trying to get anyone's attention. The more she thought about it, the clearer it became to her. She did not want anything… romantic. She did not want to fall in love with anyone and she didn't want anyone to fall in love with her. She had been there, done that, and it had just caused her pain and nearly destroyed her. She was better on her own. She was fine that way. Maybe in a few years she would revisit the thought, but just imagining it scared the life out of her. It was still way too soon. For now, she would just make a very good, totally platonic, friend and that was all there was ever going to be of it.

The day went by too quickly. It was a busy day in the shop, since a lot of people got off work earlier on Fridays and apparently, that day, everyone had decided they wanted to buy books. Jemima hurried around, trying to make every costumer happy, help them the best she could. These were her favourite kind of days, even though she usually felt like she had been run over by a tractor afterwards, completely emptied out, both her head and body. She hoped Clara and Fred would be at their best behaviour that night, because she didn't think she could handle any meltdowns.

As it turned out, hours later, they weren't on their best behaviour. At first, they were just running around, having a great time. But then Clara fell, hit her chin on the Baby Born-doll she was carrying around, and all hell broke loose. Fred cried because his sister did, none of them would eat their supper and then Fred decided to put Clara's favourite stuffed animal, the beloved Trevor, in the bath. Things were chaotic, to say the least. After Jemima had put them both to bed and spent an hour trying to calm Fred down, because of his growing pains again; she sat down on the sofa, as usual, and waited for Thomas to come home. He had said he was going to be home by eight and had promised to hold that time, because Jemima had told him she was going to the gig afterwards. She knew him and Jeanine sometimes worried a little about her, because they thought her life was too calm and she didn't do enough things that a twenty-three year old apparently should do. They all used to laugh about it, because they only said it as a joke, but they had both seemed overly excited when she had told them about her plans for the evening.

When the time started to get close to nine, Jemima actually started to get annoyed. Thomas was one of the kindest, most thoughtful people she knew and she had never, ever felt like that towards him before. But she started to feel like it was really disrespectful, that he wasn't home yet, when he had promised. Yes, he was saving lives over at the hospital, but this was an almost daily occurrence and she now felt like she wanted a little more… respect. Like her time was also worth something, no matter how she was going to spend it.

At half past nine, she finally heard someone by the door. She immediately got up, grabbed her bag and got ready to leave. When she saw Thomas by the door, he made a face like that kind of mortified and ashamed you can pretend to be, when you know the person you've done something wrong to, isn't really in a position not to forgive you and you'll both just be able to laugh it off in a few seconds. Jemima wasn't going to give him that this time.

"The kids are asleep. We've had an awful night, Clara hit her chin a little, so there might be a little bruise, and Trevor is in the dryer", she said, in the coldest tone she could muster, before he could start apologizing. She didn't have time for that.

"I'm really, really sorry, Jemima…" Thomas started.

She just grabbed her coat, said a quick "I know, but I don't have time to stay" and left.

The band would start playing in half an hour and there was quite a long way to get there. She was in the clothes she had worn all day, with old, dried in sweat from the busy day in the over packed bookshop, and stains from Fred's tomato soup on it. She wished she would have had more time, if not to go home and change clothes, to stay and give Thomas a bit of a hard time, while she was still this angry.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Jemima arrived at the pub about fifteen minutes later that she had planned. Somehow, the journey there had gone smoothly and there hadn't been any delays or obstacles, since she'd left the Wilkinson's house, of course. She opened the heavy door, felt the thick air hit her like a wave, the second she stepped inside. The place was not filled to the brim, which she was overjoyed by, but there was quite a lot of people there. That was good, she thought. It was nice for the band that they had a public.

Suddenly, a different song started. The music so far had only been the last, instrumental part of a song, but now someone started singing. Even though she had never heard him sing before, she knew immediately that it was Harry. He had quite a deep voice, a little raspy, and he was really, really good. Jemima made her way around two large groups of people, standing around tiny tables, to see the small stage and the band a little better.

Harry was standing in the middle, a little in front of the others. He had a mic clasped in both of his hands, his long hair out of the bun she had previously only seen it in, and a shirt in a really patterned, colourful fabric. It was the kind of shirt where you couldn't really tell if the person wearing it was actually serious about it or if it was meant as a joke. But somehow, -Harry really could pull it off and the longer she watched him on that stage, the more she realized that he belonged there. He was just naturally one of those people who looked cool in a situation like that, and not like someone who was pretending to be an artist or something.

Jemima took a look at the other guys in the band. There was a blond guy, playing a guitar like he hadn't done anything else since the minute he was born. She could just see how much he enjoyed it. The guy playing bass was wearing a sleeveless top, slightly distraught, top; showing off his quite skinny, but heavily tattooed arms. He seemed to have adapted to the washed-up-rock-star-look, wholeheartedly and it kind of suited him. Behind the drums sat a really buff guy, with a buzz cut and a face that reminded Jemima of a puppy. He also had some tattoos on his arms and hands, but somehow they felt a bit more out of place on him, than on Harry and the bass-player. He was a really good drummer, though, Jemima thought, as she made her way to the bar to get something to drink.

She very rarely drank anything alcoholic and was almost always proven to be a total lightweight. She didn't know if it was because she was so tiny or because of she almost never had anything to drink, but in almost all cases, she preferred to drink something virgin instead. Tonight though, she really fancied a beer. It had been a long day, she had been very annoyed or angry at points during it and she just felt like having one. One beer, that she could handle and not become to talkative, embarrassing or becoming that kind of dizzy that she hated.

Jemima got a pint, and made her way back so she could see the stage. There was one small table empty, by the bench that ran along the wall. There, she had a perfect view of the stage and could rest her tired legs at the same time.

After a little while, the couple beside her, seemed to have started some kind of wrestling match with their tongues, and soon, limbs were flying everywhere, a little too close to Jemima's head for her to be comfortable and not be afraid of having her teeth knocked out. She tried to move away, inch by inch, so that she suddenly sat as a part of the group next to her. She couldn't really decide which was to prefer; to basically be involved in a make out-session with two strangers or to sit so close to a group of people, that it would be weird of her not to at least say hi to them. She wasn't willing to do either, so she spent about an hour in this very uncomfortable position, pretending to be so fixated by the band, that she didn't realize she was pretty much sitting on a loud, bad smelling guy's lap.

When the band had finally played their last song, Jemima got up from the bench, faster than what was probably cool, but she couldn't get away fast enough. She went for the stage, but about half-way she realized that she was going to look ridiculous if she just ran up to Harry. So she stayed, right in the middle of the pub, waiting for him to be done on stage and hopefully come down and find her. There was about ten awkward minutes, of her standing in the middle of the room, moving a few feet every thirty seconds or so, just so she didn't look like a complete loser, which she obviously did anyway. Then Harry was finally done with whatever he had been doing up there; fixing with the equipment, talking to his bandmates and about a million other people that came up to them and that he suddenly seemed to know. He jumped off the little plateau and started looking around the dark room, squinting to try and see anything at all. Jemima saw this as her moment to casually wave at him, without seeming too desperate, so she did. After what seemed like a little bit too long of waving, he finally saw her and hurried over, a huge smile on his face.

"You came!" he yelled, to be heard over the noise from all the talking and the music that had started to play in the speakers.

"Yeah, of course. I told you I would", Jemima yelled back, trying to make it seem like she was completely comfortable and used to this kind of scene.

"No, I know. I just didn't think this was your kind of place. You don't really… seem like the type."

Shit, was she that predictable?

"But I'm glad you're here," he continued, giving her a big smile. "Do you want something to drink? My treat."

Jemima waved the half empty pint she still had in her hand and that she had only sipped from for the whole time being there.

"I'm ashamed to say this, but this is as much as I can handle", she said, trying to make a joke out of something that some people often saw as pathetic. Being a lightweight was not considered cool, from what she had experienced.

Harry just nodded, not looking at her in any kind of way for what she had just told him, before he was suddenly pushed right into her.

"Harreeh!" someone behind him, with their arms around his shoulders, yelled. "Oh shit, sorry", the person, who turned out to be the blond guitar-player, said, when he realized he had pushed Harry into someone and that that someone had spilt what was left in her pint over the both of them.

"Niall! What the…" Harry shouted, making himself free from his attacker's arms.

"I'm so sorry!" the guy, whom now had been informally introduced to her as Niall, shouted over the music, again. He grabbed some napkins from a table nearby and tried to dry Jemima's beer drowned t-shirt.

"Hey, it's fine", she assured him, before he would accidentally touch her boobs. "There's like stains of kids food on this anyway, so really, don't bother. It's okay." She smiled at him and he made a face like a lightbulb had just gone off over his head.

"Oh! You're Jemima, aren't you?" She could now hear that he had a pretty prominent, Irish accent, which immediately made her like him. There was something about those that she just loved. People who spoke with Irish accents just always sounded kind and happy, which in turn, made her feel calm and secure in their company. Niall continued: "Harry said you were coming. He was over the moon about having a friend to invite. And a girl, non the less. She doesn't meet many of those, the poor guy."

Harry rolled his eyes, just laughing it off. Jemima thought that with his looks and his confidence, that could not be the truth. And she realized that she really didn't mind. Niall suddenly came to another conclusion and said:

"Oh, shite! Is this going to be a date? Am I just here interrupting something?"

"No!" Jemima almost shouted at him, while Harry answered with a much calmer: "No, Niall, it's not."

"No, I don't do guys", Jemima said calmly, to try and recover from her embarrassing outburst, which had made it sound like she was about thirteen, trying to convince someone that she did not fancy some boy, when she actually really did. She definitely didn't want Harry or anyone else to think she fancied him and on top of that was trying to deny it with way too much protest.

Before things could get too awkward and anyone had the time to comment on that last thing she said, they were joined by the drummer of the band. He introduced himself as Liam and gave Jemima a firm and honestly, quite sweaty handshake. He too, offered to buy her a drink, as he saw what happened to her last one. This time, she actually said yes, because one, she wanted to be polite, and two, because these guys were apparently going to stay and have a drink and she really wanted to stick around and would feel stupid, standing there without one. She chose a smaller beer this time, being careful so she didn't drink too much and made a fool of herself.

They all sat down, around one of the small tables there were actually chairs around. The bassist came over too, with two of his friends that had come to watch the gig. He didn't see Jemima at first, which was understandable, since she had somehow fallen back into her usual habit of trying to melt into the wall as soon as there were people she didn't know around. Harry got his attention, that seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

"Louis, this is Jemima", he said. Louis looked around the table and found the one face he wasn't familiar with.

"Hi, love", he said in a thick Yorkshire dialect. She held out her hand, but Harry quickly pushed it away.

"Are you mad?" he shouted. "Don't touch his hand. You never know where they've been."

It took a second for Jemima to understand that he was joking, and by the time she caught up, the two guys had already cracked up with laughter.

That was how the night continued. The four members of the band, plus a few people who had come to watch them and came and left the table sporadically, sat around, having beers and banters, laughing until everyone had had tears in their eyes at least once. Jemima enjoyed it all, but when they all decided that it was time to leave around midnight, to go to some club, she felt it was time for her exit. Harry said he was going with the guys, but when Jemima had said goodbye to everyone and started walking towards the tube station, she heard someone come running after her and when she turned around, there he was.

"I couldn't let you go home all by yourself", he explained. "Don't know what I was thinking, that's a really shitty thing to do."

"Oh, you don't have to", Jemima assured him. She didn't want him to miss out on something because of her.

"Well, first of all, I do. And I want to. Not to insult you or undermine you or anything, I think you're perfectly capable of taking care of yourself. But I mean, a guy shouldn't lure a girl all the way to Camden and then let her take the tube home all by herself. That's not cool, ok. So let me just do that."

"And what else?" He looked at her, confused. "You said 'First of all'. That means there's a second reason."

"Ok, grammar police", he said, now laughing. She could see his breath because the air was so cold. "Well, secondly, I really didn't want to go. I mean, I love them, but I'm shattered. I just want to go home to my bed."

They both started laughing and didn't really stop until they sat down on the tube. She was surprised at how easy it was, talking to Harry. That never really happened to her. Them giggling like little girls, ended as soon as they sat down though. After only a few seconds, Jemima felt how extremely tired she was and Harry looked like he was about as close to falling asleep himself.

They were in an almost empty carriage, only a few teenagers, who looked way too young to be out this late, sat at the other end of it. Harry put his feet up on the seat beside her and looked at her. He seemed that kind of unashamed as you only get from alcohol or no sleep.

"When you said…", he started, slowly. "When you said you don't do guys… Are you gay?"

Jemima couldn't help that a little laughter slip out of her. She hadn't thought about it, but of course that's how people was going to interpret that.

"No, I'm not", she said. "Would it be a problem if I was?"

She felt like it was best to check homophobe off the list right now, if that was the case, but he just answered, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"No, of course not. What do you take me for?" he smiled a little and she smiled back.

"No, I mean…" she tried do choose her words carefully. "I mean I don't do guys or girls. No animals or plants either, if you were worried about that. I don't really want that in my life."

"So… none of it?" he looked a little confused, but like he was just interested and wanted more explanations to how she worked.

"No", she continued. "I mean, I did have a boyfriend and I've had sex and all that. But it got… messy, to say the least. I'll tell you another time, I don't want to get into it now. And so I chose that it's not something I want anymore and I'm perfectly happy the way things are."

"Okay, that's really cool. I mean it", he said, when she gave him a doubtful look. "Really. It's good that you, or anyone, can decide exactly how to life your life and not conform to societies norms. It's good."

"Thanks", she said and that was the end of that conversation. She was glad she had it out of the way. That way all cards were on the table and he wouldn't expect anything from her.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Jemima and Harry texted each other a lot in the following week. It could be anything from Harry updating her on the latest thing Grumpy Amanda had done to them asking actual, getting-to-know-each-other-questions. Like what their first pets had been (Jemima's was guinea pig that had gotten ill within the first year and died, and Harry's had been a cat with some kind of mental illness, which made it unafraid of everything and eventually led to it's very sad, but not really unexpected, death).

On Saturday afternoon, Jemima received another text from him, saying:

 **Hey, wanna come over to mine and Niall's tonight? We're just ordering take-out and watching telly, but it would be fun if you came** **J** **xH**

Jemima thought it over for about a second, before she replied yes. She had not seen either of them since the night of the gig, but take-out and movies with friends was just her kind of night.

She had never had a lot of friends. Being really shy kind of did that to you. She'd had a best friend, Ally, whom had lived next door to her. They were inseparable from pretty much the first day they met when they were three, until the about the first day Secondary school, when Ally had pretty much ignored Jemima. She later found out it was because of a rumour that had gone around the whole summer, something about Jemima liking the boy Ally had liked since forever. It definitely hadn't been true, but when Jemima at last got an answer out of Ally about why she was ignoring her, it had been too late to fix their friendship and make it what it had once been. Ally had already found new group of friends, one that Jemima didn't have a chance in hell of getting into and neither did she want that.

She eventually found some new friends herself, after about a year of being a total outcast who no-one wanted anything to do with. They were four people, in the grade under her, always sitting at the back of the library. She first studied them, for days, from afar, before daring to go up and talk to them. It took a little while before she felt like she wasn't just something they dragged around because they couldn't get rid of her. She was new to this making friends-thing and she felt like she was never an obvious part of their group, until one time, about six months after she had started "following" them around. She had been home, ill, for almost a week, and by the end of it, her friends came to her home, with chocolates, a magazine and an unspoken affirmation that they actually liked her and wanted to be her friend. That had been one of the happiest moments of Jemima's life.

The "leader" of their group, or more like the glue that kept their different personalities together and made it all work, was Anna; a tall, naturally beautiful girl, with long, blonde curly locks and a million freckles on her face. People often expected her to be a bitch, because she was so pretty, but after about five seconds of talking to her, that thought was long gone and you realized immediately that the girl had a heart made of actual gold. Jemima had always like Anna the best.

Then there was Julie, who looked like a sweet little girl, with her big, natural hair, baby-like soft skin and huge, brown doe-eyes. Little did people know, she had the most outrageously dirty humour and could whisper the most inappropriate things to her friends, in the worst situations. Jemima found her hilarious and had more than once got food stuck in her throat, spit water over a table or cried with laughter about something Julie had said.

The two boys of the group, Elliot and Max, had been best friends since they were basically in the womb. While they were very different, you didn't really think about that when you were around them, because they complimented each other so well. Elliot was outgoing and had the loudest laugh Jemima had ever heard, while Max was a little more shy and thoughtful with what he said.

They made a great group of friends, the five of them, and stuck together through thick and thin. After four years of Jemima being miserable in her own grade, where she didn't have a single friend, she was finally allowed to move down a grade and be in the same class as the other four. They graduated together and swore they would keep in touch for the rest of their lives; be bridesmaids at each other's weddings, be god mothers and fathers to each other's children and basically die side by side in a retirement home, when it was time for that.

Now, four years had gone by since then. They still kept each other updated on what happened to them, through a group they had made on Facebook. Anna was in Australia, where she'd always wanted to move, engaged to a billionaire heir who volunteered at an animal rescue centre, instead of having a paying job. Julie was studying Bioengineering at Trinity College in Dublin, where Jemima had been to visit her twice. She had thought about applying to the college herself, sometimes, but as soon as the thought had come to her, she had pushed it away. Even though she had loved Dublin, it was too far away.

Elliot and Max had both moved to Oslo, about a year ago, since you could easily get shitty jobs and earn lots of money there. They sometimes put up pictures of dead fish on the Facebook group's page, which none of the girls appreciated.

Jemima was the only one of them who was still in London. She had always loved it there, so she didn't feel the need to move somewhere else, just because. She had taken a few courses at different universities, trying to learn how to write books. Some had been better than others, but she didn't feel like she'd learnt a huge amount from any of them. She figured writing was just something you could practise yourself and get better at and no course could really make you any better. It was at one of those courses she had met Jack.

At exactly seven o'clock, Jemima rang the doorbell to the front entrance of Harry and Niall's building. They did the whole "Hello" and buzzing thing and after four sets of stairs, which made her embarrassingly out of breath, she was in their flat. It was small, but bigger than her own. Niall had obviously put his own stamp on the place, with loads of music posters, a rug that looked like the Irish flag under a coffee table and his guitar, standing like it was placed in a museum, in front of the huge window in the living room. Other than that, the furniture was mainly black and white, modern IKEA-stuff, typical for a ready furnished flat. What wasn't very typical though, for a flat with two young guys living in it, was that it was actually really clean. Everything seemed to have a place and to have been put there, instead of thrown around the room.

Niall, who had let Jemima in, came after her into the living room.

"Harry is just taking a dump", he said casually, gesturing towards what must have been the loo.

"Please, don't say that", they could hear Harry's voice, calm but annoyed, from inside and you could pretty much hear him roll his eyes and sigh at his friend's comment.

Seconds later, he came out of there.

"Hi, Jem!" he said, punching Niall's arm a little. "I wasn't… Just so you know."

"Jemima", she blurted out, before she could stop herself from making it sound really rude. "Sorry, it's just… I've always hated the nickname Jem and there was this person, who I really didn't like, who called me that anyway. And now all I can hear, when anyone call me that, is his stupid voice, saying it."

"Okay, sorry. Won't happen again." He gave her a smile and continued. "So, this is our, well Niall's, humble abode. Here's my bedroom, aka. the living room. Over there's the kitchen, the bathroom and Niall's bedroom. I would not go in there if I were you. Things have started to grow under the piles of stuff he has in there." He showed with waves of his hand where every room was.

"Yeah, yeah, just complain about my ability to clean", Niall said, pretending to be offended. "Just a question. Who lets you sleep on a bed in their disgusting flat, on a bed that takes up too much room eve when it's folded up? Mhm…?"

"Well, I feel like me cleaning up the place after you, pretty much every day makes up for that, though."

Harry threw himself down in a corner of the big, black sofa. He held up a small pile of take-out menus that he grabbed from the shelf under the table, and said:

"Jemima, since you're the guest, you'll get to choose where we order from. Do you think you're up for that kind of responsibility?"

Jemima nodded and went to sit down beside him. She looked through the menus and decided that it was a night for pizza.

They ordered, the food came, and while they ate it, Harry and Niall entertained them all with stories of the many, quite stupid, situations they had been in together. Or "adventures" as Niall called them. Jemima told them a few of her own, from her days back in school, but they were pretty tame compared to the boy's. Even though she had a great time with them both, she really started to miss her old friends, with whom she shared war stories and inside jokes.

When they were finished eating, they just sat on the sofa for a while, too full to even move. The Graham Norton Show was on the telly, on low volume, and they all just watched it, half asleep. Jemima's eyes fell on Niall's guitar.

"Could you teach me to play something?" she asked, turning a little towards him.

"What?" he mumbled, like he had been half asleep and she woke him up.

"The guitar. Can you teach me to play something?"

He immediately stood up and got the guitar, suddenly completely awake. It was cute how excited he got about it, she thought. Harry, who still seemed to be half asleep and half watching the telly, cast them little glances every now and again.

"Can you play?" Jemima turned her head to ask him.

"No, not really. I've been trying to learn for ages, but it's going very slow. "I think I'm just going to stick to singing for now."

"Yeah, about that", she said. "I did not expect your voice to be that good, actually. Why didn't you tell me?"

Harry laughed. "What? Should I've said 'Come watch me sing. I'm really, really amazing'?"

"Yes, maybe", Jemima joked, then turned back to Niall and the guitar.

He taught her a few basic cords, but when about one and a half hour had past, she still couldn't play them together, without taking too long of a break to find the next one. By then, her fingers felt like they were going to start bleeding and she was almost delirious with tiredness. She couldn't help herself from yawning and stretching out her whole body and decided that it was probably best for her to go home.

When she walked the still pretty crowded streets of Saturday night London, she thought about how… how lovely the night had been. That was the best way to describe it, Lovely. She felt as though she actually had found some new friends, with whom she could be herself. Like with her old friends, they didn't need to do much. Just being in each other's company was enough.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

The weeks went on. Jemima went to work at the bookshop, she babysat Clara and Fred and she hung out a lot with Harry and Niall. Louis and Liam sometimes joined them, which was fun. She liked them all so much and really felt she could relax and be herself around them, which didn't happen with a lot of people. It was just so easy, nothing was expected of her and contrary to what she had thought in the beginning, Harry wasn't even that cool. Sure, he always had that aura around him, but she had started to suspect that was just confidence and a complete lack of care for other people's opinions of him. He was actually kind of a big dork, with the most ridiculous dad-jokes and he always did these funny little dance moves. And that confidence was somehow infectious and Jemima felt more and more how she could also be a total dork around him.

One day, in the beginning of April, Jemima just woke up anxious. That was something she was used to and most times she could just shake the feeling off, once she got to work and was around people. But today, she wasn't that lucky. She walked around the shop, feeling as though a huge lump was pressing in her chest, and like it was going to explode at any point. Anders, the shop owner, seemed to notice. He had always been very fatherly towards her and constantly looked over at her as to check that she hadn't stopped breathing.

Anders was a fifty-five year old, Swedish man, who owned the shop with his husband Ted. They had started it in the early eighties and still seemed to love it. Their children, Delia and Anton, were now grown-up and had moved out. But as soon as they came to visit for a few days, they couldn't help but to come and work in the shop for a few hours, which Jemima loved. They always travelled all over the world and had the most amazing and funny stories to tell her. She wished she was a bit more like them, adventurous and brave enough to go out and explore, sometimes alone. But that was something she had long ago realized she wouldn't do.

When it came to lunchtime, Jemima was pretty much a wreck. She had mailed off a box of brand new books, forgot to get paid by the only costumer of the morning and spilled coffee all over the table in the back room.

"Jemima, love", Anders said, sticking his head out of the office. He had, no doubt heard her swearing as she tried to fix a small problem with the cashier. "Are you sure you're alright? You don't seem… so on top today, love."

Jemima was going to answer, but the big lump went straight to her throat and she could feel the tears burning, threatening to start coming out of her eyes at any second. So instead she just shook her head.

Anders looked at her, like he was really feeling for her, and said: "Is there anything I can do?"

When she shook her head again, he gave her a hug and then they agreed that it was probably for the best if she went home to have a nap.

As soon as Jemima got out the door, she knew she couldn't go home. The anxiety felt like it was eating her up inside and he knew it would only get worse if she went home, to an empty flat. It was always better to be around people, people she trusted, and not be alone with her thoughts.

She'd had a lot of these very anxious, horrible days through the years. It had first started when she was eleven years old and she felt like Ally was slipping away from her, and in the time following that, it had almost become her new normal state. It had gotten better once she felt like she actually had friends again, but even that couldn't fully stop the anxiety. Or the depression. The periods of depression most often happened in the winter, when the constant darkness seemed to suck out all that was good and happy in her life. In the run up to Christmas she was often fine, because everyone was always cheery and looking forward to that day. Then New Year's came and she absolutely hated that day. She couldn't really figure out why, she was just always in a grumpy and anxious mood on the day and she never made plans to do something on that night. She just didn't have the will or the energy for it. And after that, it was the season of depression. It sounded like a cliché, every time she tried to tell someone about it, but the truth was, she really couldn't see that anything was worth getting out of bed for. She didn't want anything from life and didn't want life to have any expectations of her. She really couldn't see a light at the end of the tunnel, like nothing would be good, ever again. It didn't matter that she went through this every fucking year, it was like she was walking in circles and knew what would happen, but still couldn't do anything to stop it or remember that she had gone through it before.

The anxiety could come at any point during the year, or even day. It could just show up, like an old, annoying and disliked cousin, who would leave your side, no matter how many times you told it you didn't want it there. It gave her the lump in her chest and little baby-versions of the thoughts the depressions made her think.

Jemima contemplated her options for a little while. She could either go home, take a bath in her ridiculous bathtub, put on a sweet rom-com and take a nap. She could walk in and out of shops, just to be around people, even though she didn't know them, and to move around. Or, she thought, she actually had a friend around. She'd never turned up at Harry's unannounced, and she didn't really like the idea of it, since she liked to plan things ahead. But now, there was no time to plan for it, so she decided to get on the tube and go to his flat.

About half-way there, Jemima remembered that Harry actually had a job and might not be in. Niall definitely wouldn't be, since he had a regular, nine-to-five job at some sort of office, in the lower ranks of the office-hierarchy. He never talked about his job, because he hated it so much. All he wanted to do was to go in to his bullying and actually quite stupid boss's office and tell him he quit. But he needed the money to be able to rent the flat, so he stayed until he could find something better.

When she arrived at the boys flat, Jemima soon realized that she had been right, worrying that Harry wouldn't be there. But she knew the code to the front door and she had her lunch sandwich with her, so he sat down on the stairs inside, ate the sandwich and waited. She silence in the stairwell was quite calming and she thought about how she never really just sat in complete silence and did nothing. I was nice and she could feel the lump in her chest ease up, for every minute that went by.

About an hour later, the front door of the house opened. Harry walked through it, shaking rain out of his hair, like a dog. Jemima hadn't even noticed the rain, she had fallen in some kind of meditative state of mind, where she wasn't really thinking about anything at all. Harry looked a bit chocked, but happy to see her sitting there.

"Hi!" he said, surprised. "What… what are you doing here?"

Jemima hesitated a little, before she answered. The anxiety had completely disappeared while she sat in the stairwell, but she somehow felt like she should tell him anyway. They knew each other well enough by now, to deserve to know the other one's not so great sides too.

"Well…" she started. "I have this… this stupid, I don't know, feeling, that I get sometimes. Like anxiety or something. And I was at work and wasn't really functioning properly and my boss sent me home and I didn't want to go home to mine, because it's not very good for me to be alone. And it's too far to go to my parent's or my sister's house, when it can just be gone in a second. So I thought I would come here. Just to have some company, because that usually makes it a lot better. Do you think I'm crazy now?" She added the last part, making it sound like a joke, even though she was really wondering.

"No, of course not", Harry said immediately, looking at her as if she actually was. "It's good that you came here, I just wish I'd been home… Can I do anything?"

She laughed a little. "No, but thank you. Your stairwell here actually did a pretty great job of calming me down. They're underrated, really. I'm okay now, so I feel a bit stupid for coming here really."

"Hey! Don't. It's good. Come on, let's go upstairs and make some tea. I'm starving."

He held out a hand to help her get up from the stairs and they walked up, what seemed like a thousand of them, to the flat.

When they got inside, he made them some tea and sandwiches, while he insisted she sat on the sofa and just relaxed. She was really fine by now, she tried to protest, but it was so sweet how he really wanted to make sure she was okay, that she didn't have the heart to make too much of fuzz about it. It was nice, especially when you lived on your own and always had to do everything for yourself, to have someone take care of you, even if it was just making some tea.

Jemima suddenly woke up, blinking to make her eyes open up properly and didn't understand where she was at first. After a few seconds, she realized she was on the sofa in Harry and Niall's flat, with a blanket over her. Outside the windows, the sky was pitch black. She got in that kind of panic mode that you get when you've fallen asleep without meaning to, at the most inappropriate time. She wondered for a second if she was alone, but then she heard some clinking of a guitar, coming from the kitchen. She got up and went in there.

"Hey!" Harry said, as he heard her come in, looking up at her with a half-smile. "Sleep well?"

"God, I'm so sorry", Jemima apologized, burying her face in her hands. "I don't know what happened. I really didn't mean to fall asleep."

"It's ok. Honestly. Figured you were tired after the day you said you'd had. I saved your sandwiches in the fridge and I can make you some new tea, if you're hungry."

"Oh, thanks. I can do it myself", she said, and turned to the kitchen counter to boil some more water.

They were quiet while she did it, her taking out the sandwiches and making them each a new cup of tea, and him trying to play the guitar.

Suddenly, they heard the key pretty much get smashed into the front door, and it then getting thrown open. Niall ran through the hallway, throwing his shoes off at the same time.

"Can't talk now…" they heard him yell from inside his bedroom. "I've got a date picking me up here in five minutes and my fecking boss kept me at work for way longer than he's fecking allowed to and now I'm gonna be a smelly fecking mess in front of the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. Remind me to quit that job." He added as he walked in the kitchen, shirt open and halfway in a pair of trousers. "Oh, hi Jemima."

Both her and Harry laughed a little at his hysteria. Niall added:

"And before you ask, SHE is picking ME up because it's so much closer to where we're going, from here, so it wouldn't really make sense for me to pick her up."

"We weren't going to ask that", Harry said, trying not to laugh at the state of his friend. "It would be stupid to do it the other way around, just because of some rule that someone made up, that the guy has to pick up the girl. I am going to ask though, why you couldn't just meet there."

Niall gave him a look that was probably meant to be a warning. But since Niall was pretty much the least threatening person on the planet, it just made Harry and Jemima crack up with laughter once again.

"You laugh now", Niall said, making things even funnier by pointing a finger at them. "But we'll see who has the last laugh when my gorgeous date turns up and you to are left here, looking like a dog that's been forced to have a bath," he pointed at Harry, "and like you've been asleep for hours, with black stuff all around your eyes," he waved at Jemima, who immediately started to take off any make-up smudged around her eyes, with just her fingers, though she didn't really care what she looked like in the company she was in.

As soon as Niall was done with telling them off, the doorbell rang. Niall ran to the buzzer and a minute later, Harry and Jemima could heat him opening the door for his date. She could see through the kitchen door, that his shoes were still on the floor in the hallway, making them very visible from the front door, which made her laugh out loud, again. She quickly put her hand over her mouth, since she'd not been planning on making her presence noticed, especially not since she apparently looked like a panda. But Niall's date had heard her and Jemima and Harry exchanged an "oh no, what have we done"-look, when they heard the girl ask Niall if someone else was home. Niall made an un-happy, noise, implying that there was, and the girl has already by the door the kitchen.

It took a few seconds of noticing each other and realizing they had seen the other person before, until they both remembered where and when.

"Oh", was all the girl, standing in front of Jemima, could say. "It's you."

Jemima didn't say anything, but probably had a face that said the same thing, just a little more horrified, and nodded.

"Oh", the girl said again. "Well… nice to… see you again."

She said it more like a question, waved at Harry and then turned around and left the kitchen. Niall and Harry looked at them both, then at each other and then back at the two girls; their faces clearly telling how confused they both were by the situation. Jemima waved at Niall that he should go with the girl, miming that it was fine, and he did as she told him, but still with a very perplexed face.

As soon as they heard the door close, Harry turned to Jemima.

"And WHAT the FUCK was that?" He was almost yelling, although he didn't sound angry, just very, very confused.

Jemima decided there was no idea to make up a lie. She didn't really want to either, even though it meant she had to tell him the whole story.

"Can we sit down on the sofa", she asked, already on her way there. Harry grabbed his cup of tea and followed her.

They sat down and he looked at her, waiting for her to start explaining. She took a deep breath and said:

"You know that whole thing about me not wanting a relationship. Well, that girl has a lot to do with that…"


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Jemima had met Jack the second week of a new writing course she was taking. She had seen him in class the week before, noticed that he was really good looking and he seemed like a really smart person, every time he answered a question or made a point about a text they were reading, to the class.

The first day of the second week, he came into the classroom a little late. The place beside Jemima was the only one left. They were such a small group that the classroom they were given wasn't much bigger than a closet.

She didn't dare to look at him for the first hour, because she was so nervous about him sitting so close to her. She was almost twenty-one years old, a virgin and still quite shy around boys in general.

After that awful hour, sitting completely still, so she didn't accidentally touch Jack, they had to do a discussion in pairs. Of course she was with him, because they were sat beside each other. Jemima's hands were sweaty and she constantly stumbled over her words, got a beet root kind of red all over her face and neck and generally made herself look like an absolute loser. That was only the story of her life and the reason she had neither lost her virginity nor had had an actual relationship in her entire life. She knew it was pathetic, but she rarely told anyone and she tried her best not to get too hung up about it.

Jemima was relieved once the discussion and the class for the day was over. She was going to make sure she never sat beside Jack again and that she had as little to do with him as possible during the following six months. That was the way she had always kept a safe distance between herself and complete humiliation and she wasn't going to stop now.

Somehow, during the following week, those plans took a complete turn. She had, after a little begging, decided to go to a pub with some of her new classmates. Jack was there, which she thought was fine, because she could just talk to the others and pretend he wasn't there. For some reason, he had the exact opposite plan about her. She had a little too much to drink that night, and was more relaxed and felt more brave than she'd ever done before in her life. Somehow the night ended with her and Jack making out in the alley behind the pub. She didn't want to go further that night and thought that he might have lost interest when she said she didn't want to go to his place, but just to North Harrow, where she lived, still with her parents.

It turned out he had very much not lost interest and they started hanging out, pretty much all the time. They weren't exactly boyfriend and girlfriend for quite a long while, which she would have liked, but also a lot more than just friends. Eventually, he asked her if she wanted to be his girlfriend. He had planned it all out, to make it really special. They had a lovely dinner at a restaurant, where he nervously asked her the question, even though it was kind of obvious he had nothing to be nervous about, and then they went home to his and that was the night she lost her virginity.

Jemima really loved him. He was so smart, both as in book-smart and also the other kind, the one you can't really learn. He was funny and gorgeous, with short, dark blonde hair that curled a little at the ends and what she thought was the most beautiful hazel eyes she had ever seen. He dressed in the way so that it looked like he didn't care what he wore, but where every piece of clothing was well thought through. He wrote the most amazing stories, a lot of them about his parent's divorce and how that kind of thing could affect an only child, like himself. A lot of his work also told her that there were endless layers to him; layers that she wanted and needed to peel away, so that she could see the next one, which would always be more interesting and beautiful than the last.

She told him she loved him, maybe a little sooner than you were supposed to, according to The Relationship Rulebook. The one that didn't actually exist, but everyone knew you should follow. When she said it, he was quiet for a little while. She could feel her heart drop and realize that she might have done the most stupid mistake of her life, before he looked at her, smiled the amazing smile he reserved just for her, and told her he loved her too.

They had about a year of just being in love. They moved in together, she got to know all of his friends, he got to know her's. They celebrated Christmas together with her family. When she thought back on it, that was when it had all started going wrong.

Jemima's dad had made a few snarky comments to her, about Jack. Although they annoyed her, she just brushed them off. Of course her dad wasn't going to love his daughter's boyfriend. He loved her sister's husband Ben, like a son, but Georgina and Ben had been together since they were thirteen, so that wasn't really the same thing.

After that, Jemima started to notice more and more how her family probably didn't like Jack. They didn't say anything straight out, but she could tell from the way they sounded when they had to mention him, or how they often just invited her to things, not mentioning that if he was invited too or not. It was like they wanted to pretend he didn't exist.

For other reasons, Jemima had also started to doubt her relationship with Jack. Not in the way her family was, like he wasn't good enough for her or whatever they were trying to hint. She had started to feel like he was slipping away from her, like he needed a lot more room to be alone; he wanted to hang out with his friends more and he very often looked like she was annoying him when she spoke to him.

She truly loved him and would not for the world want to lose him. Even though she didn't see it then, she became kind of obsessed with every little thing he did. Well, every little thing she thought he did. She ignored the fact that he was starting to get more and more rude to her and how it was obvious that to everyone else but her that he was a really bad boyfriend. Meanwhile, in her own mind, all she could see was him flirting with other girls in front of her. She often got upset about him being out with his friends, because she was sure he was actually cheating on her. She never caught him in a lie or found any evidence of it actually being true, but she was sure of it.

On the 18th of September, her dad turned fifty-five. He hadn't really had a proper party for his fiftieth, since his mother had passed away only a month before, so this time, his wife and daughters had planned a huge party for him. Everyone was in a great mood. Everyone, except Jack. He sat in the corner of the party, for the whole night, sipping on beer after beer, looking like he wanted to be anywhere but where he was. Jemima could tell by her parents comments to her and by the looks they exchanged, that they were not happy about her boyfriend's behaviour, but she tried to ignore it all. Despite her parents not liking Jack, she was really close to them and didn't want to make a big deal about it all and ruin her dad's birthday.

That was until someone pointed out to her aunty Jodie, who Jemima's boyfriend was. Jemima herself didn't have a clue about what was happening at the time, since she was helping her sister with some dishes in the kitchen. It wasn't until her parents came storming in, that she understood that something had been completely destroyed out in the sunny garden.

Her dad was red in the face and spoke to her in whispering screaming.

"Now Jemima, I've had enough. He is out of here, right now!"

She was lost for words for a second, but then felt the wall she had built up to protect herself and Jack, for the last few months, come up.

"What?" she also screamed in the same kind of whispering tone as her dad, trying not to make the guests outside hear them. "What has he done now that was so wrong?"

"Your aunt Jodie was just trying to be friendly and go over and say hi to him, meet Jemima's infamous boyfriend", he said, every word getting louder and louder, as he couldn't keep his anger down. He said the word _boyfriend_ as if it was something disgusting. He continued: "He basically called her a fat cow and told her to get away from him. I don't know exactly what was said, but Jodie was so upset and he just sat there, looking all smug, so I can imagine that's something he could have said."

Jemima completely lost her temper. It had been years since she had last screamed at her dad, and now with her mum and sister standing beside them and about fifty of their closest friends and family right outside, hearing every word that came out of her mouth, she screamed him right in the face.

"Just go fuck yourself, dad! Of course that's what you think he said, because you always expect the worst of him, for some fucking reason. You never even gave him a chance!" She stormed out into the garden, waved to Jack to follow her and then they left.

Georgie called her the following morning. When Jemima tried to get her sister on her side, which was where she had always stood, Georgie just sighed at first. Then she, with carefully chosen words, explained that she thought their dad was right and that their mum thought so too. That Jack was rude and that neither of them had ever really liked him. Jemima had never felt so betrayed in her entire life and all she could do was to hang up the phone.

She didn't speak to anyone from her family for a month. At first she was just angry with them, but after a while, she started to miss them, a lot. But since she wasn't going to break up with Jack, ever, she wasn't going to call them. This was their choice. It never occurred to her that they might have had a point, until a rainy day sometime in the middle of October; a day that she would later refer to as D Day.

Her and Jack were having brunch in a café near their flat. Jack was in a particularly grumpy mood towards her, but that did not seem to stop him from seeming very happy and friendly towards their waitress. Jemima could see the looks the two were giving each other and after trying to ignore it for about half an hour, it finally hit her. Jack came there all the time. He seemed to know this girl that he was now oh so very friendly towards, pretty well. She was suddenly sure that Jack had cheated on her with that tall, golden fucking goddess, and as the girl once again came up to their table, she couldn't help herself from saying:

"Could you please stop flirting with my boyfriend?"

The waitress was stunned for a second, just staring at her. Jack turned to Jemima.

"Hey, Jem, what the fuck are you talking about?" He sounded a little more angry than confused by the situation, which made Jemima sure of the fact that she had just busted them in their lies.

"Can you please stop flirting with my boyfriend?" she said again, louder, way beyond the point of caring about anyone else hearing her. "I'm sure you're used to doing that behind my back, but please stop doing it right in front of me." By the end of that, she was almost screaming, feeling the tears burn in the corners of her eyes and becoming red in the face with anger.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" the waitress said, looking as if Jemima had slapped her in the face. "I'm not flirting with him, I've never done that. I was just talking to him…"

"Yeah, right!" Jemima cut her off. "Go fuck yourselves! Or each other. I don't even care anymore."

She stood up and grabbed her bag from the chair beside her. When she tried to get out from the tight space between her own chair and the table, her bag flew over the table and hit the glasses of water and orange juice and the cups of coffee, that stood on it. Every single drop of liquid that could possibly be spilled, was; all over Jack and the waitress.

Even though it had been an honest accident, Jemima didn't even stop to say sorry or see how they dealt with it all. She just walked straight out the door, the few blocks to their flat and called her sister.

Georgina told Jemima to pick up her things, throw them in a bag and wait for her. She and Ben arrived an hour later, within which Jack had come home. Georgina just simply told him that they was taking Jemima with them and that it would be best if he never got in touch with her again. He made little to no protest about it all and if Jemima hadn't realized just how over their relationship was just an hour before, she definitely did then.

She stayed at Georgie and Ben's for two weeks, before even making an attempt to get on with her life. The two had just found out they were expecting a baby, which made Georgie all the more caring and nurturing towards her little sister. Jemima, who hadn't heard the news until then, cried when Georgie told her. Her sister had found out she was pregnant and she had been such a complete fucking idiot, that Georgie, the person who had always been her best friend and always been there for her, hadn't felt she could call and tell her.

After two weeks of wallowing, Jemima felt she needed a plan. She needed a place to stay and a way to get herself back to a new normal. She needed to be herself again, before she could call her parents.

With the help of Ben and a friend of a friend of a friend of his, she eventually found a small flat, in Bayswater. It was cheap enough so that she could manage on her own, with her okay income from the bookshop and from babysitting. Then she called her mum. They talked for an hour and made up, before she could even ask to talk to her dad. He was a little colder at first, but once she turned on the waterworks, genuinely, he melted completely, like he'd always done with her.

A month after her storming out of the café and leaving Jack, she moved into her flat. The first night she spent there, she couldn't sleep at all. She lay there and made up a sort of contract with herself. Being with Jack had turned her into someone she hated. She had become a mess and she knew it was because she had loved him. She had loved him so much that she had forgotten everything else she loved in the world and made it seem unimportant. She didn't want that to ever happen again and that's why she signed on her mental contract, that said she would never let herself fall in love again.

"The girl who was here", Jemima said to Harry. "That was the waitress I insulted and made a fool out of myself in front of."

She had told Harry the whole story, beginning to end, while they sipped on their tea, which had long ago turned cold. Some parts of the story had been harder to tell, but she found that all of it was bearable. Harry had listened and nodded, and it didn't seem like he was judging her for what an idiot she had been.

"And that's the reason I don't do guys", she ended her story, trying to make it sound like the events in it had nearly destroyed her.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Jemima had long ago ruled out the chance that she might be asexual. She definitely had urges, but she had come to realize that she could take care of those all by herself. She didn't need anyone else in the mix to do that. In fact, from what she had experienced, she very much preferred it that way. She did, however, need to think about being with another person, to get off. It was usually a fictional character, even though she would never in a million years admit that to anyone. That she often imagined Rob Stark from Game of Thrones, Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy or sometimes even Hermione Granger, going down on her. No, that she was going to take with her to her grave.

That night, though, Jemima just couldn't make it happen with any of those images in her head. They just didn't do it for her. She had felt strangely horny all day and had longed to get home to her bed and do herself. But now, she just laid there, hand between her legs, trying to get the image of him out of her head. Harry didn't belong here, couldn't he just get the about him. It felt very wrong and like it could open doors she didn't want to open, even if it was only in her head. She did not want to come, imagining him anywhere near herself.

So she sat up, in protest against her own, stupid brain. Then she just sat there for a few minutes, arguing in her mind what would really happen if she did this. It wouldn't be the end of the world, would it? She had no feelings for Harry and this wouldn't change that. He and thinking about him was apparently the only way to get one, right now.

So she lay back down again, took her vibrator from the drawer in her bedside table and put it where she wanted it. It was a little uncomfortable at first, giving in to the fantasy of Harry, being all over her naked body. But as she got used to it, it just became better and better. He had those big hands, with long fingers and just the thought of what he would be able to do with those, made her shiver all over. And yes, she had recognized that he had a pretty huge bulge in the front of his very tight jeans and when she thought of how it would feel to have him inside of her, she came, hard.

Jemima could not look Harry in the eyes for the first ten minutes, when she saw him, two days after the whole masturbation-incident. But then she realized that it was just her friend and that she really wasn't even attracted to him. Harry was just Harry and that was it. She liked him a lot as a friend, but there really wasn't anything more to it.

That fact only made it slightly easier to look at him, the next time she saw him. She blushed a little when they met, by the corner of some very dodgy building he had told her to meet him by. He didn't seem to notice her red cheeks, so she decided she was going to grow up and stop being such a child. Sometimes you masturbated thinking about your very attractive friend. Loads of people did that every single day and there wasn't anything more to it. So she forced herself to change the subject of her thoughts and asked what they were doing at this very odd place. She really had no idea.

"Okay", Harry said, smiling. "It was going to be a surprise, but now that we're so close, I guess I could tell you."

He still didn't say anything though, so Jemima pushed him a little, jumped up and down on the spot, like an overexcited child, and begged him to tell her, in her most childish begging-voice.

"Come here", he said, grabbed her wrist and started walking. After about two minutes, they stood outside a tattoo parlour. Jemima froze.

"Harry, what are we doing here?" She already knew the answer and was terrified and excited, both at once.

"You remember how you said you had always wanted a tattoo…" He started, but didn't finish that sentence.

She had said that, a few weeks ago, when she had sat and studied some of the ones he had on arms. She had always wanted one, but the reason why she had never got it, was because she was too much of a coward and thought she would probably end up getting out of the place after the tattoo artist had done one small line. And then she would be stuck with that forever.

"I thought this could be like your birthday-present. If you don't want to, I'll just go in and say you changed your mind. The guy is a friend of Louis', so I've already explained that you might not want to do it and he said it's fine and I don't have to pay for backing out or anything, so don't feel any pressure about that. But Zayn is really the best artist you can get in this city, so if you want to get one, it should really be done by him."

He sounded more and more like he thought his plan was going to fail, but the more unsure he sounded, the more sure Jemima got.

"I'll do it!" she said, a little more confident than she felt, and pushed the door open.

The room was quite dark, and all around the walls, were paintings and drawings, hung or taped up. They were all quite beautiful, and Jemima didn't even realize she was turning around in a circle, trying to take in every single one of them, until she heard someone come in the room. She turned around and out of the back room came a guy, about the same age as her, with probably the most perfect face she'd ever seen.

"Harry!" he said and the two guys performed one of those weird man-hugs, where you only hug with one arm and pretty much slap the other one in the back about twenty times. Then they both turned to her.

"This is my best friend, Jemima", Harry gestured at her. "She's a virgin."

Jemima was extremely close to making a complete arse of herself and protest about that last part, before she realized that he meant with tattoos. She also took about a millisecond to recognize how great it felt to be introduced as someone's best friend. That was another first for her.

"Hello, Jemima." Zayn held out a hand to her and she shook it, very aware of the fact that her hands were very, very sweaty. "So, what has he gotten you into?"

"I don't know", she said and laughed, again half excited and half totally terrified. "I really don't. But I don't have the heart to back out now, so I'll go along with this insane plan."

Zayn laughed with her, and asked what she wanted. That was something she had thought about many times before and that she was actually sure of.

"I want a stag, on my left wrist. Not too big, but still like visible. Not one of those tiny ones." She showed on herself how big she wanted it and Zayn quickly drew what she wanted. He then carefully shaved off the tiny hairs on her wrist, cleaned it and somehow made it so that the stag transferred from the paper to her arm. By now, she was no nervous she had started sweating. Not only her hands, but her entire body. Zayn must have seen that her arm, lying on his little work area, was shaking, because he smiled at her and told her it would be over in minutes.

When the needle touched her arm, she couldn't help but let out a quiet: "Holy shit!"

Harry sat down next to her, and without asking if she needed him to, took the hand that wasn't on the arm that was about the be tortured, and held it.

"Squeeze it as much as it hurts", he said. He didn't need to say it twice. When the needle touched her arm again, Jemima pressed as hard as she possibly could, without actually meaning to. It felt like a scolded, sharp knife was dragged along her wrist. Harry didn't even make a single move to show if it hurt him, so she kept pressing his hand, since it did actually work a little.

"So why a stag?" Zayn asked after a couple of minutes, seeming genuinely interested to know.

"Well, it's really kind of stupid", Jemima said and was thankful that it was so dark in the room, they couldn't see her blushing. "You know, in Harry Potter… his patronus." The boys both nodded, so she continued. "Well, those have always been my favourite books…"

"And that really says a lot", Harry said, quickly giving her a look to continue.

"The patronus is, you know, like a sort of protection against the dementors. And the dementors are basically depression in an actual form. So the patronus is a shield against depression." She pause for a second and cast a quick glance at Harry. "And I've struggled with depression for periods, for years and I thought that it would be nice to have like a little symbol of protection against it. It sounds so stupid, when I say it out loud."

"No, no", Zayn said, sounding like he meant it. "It's nice. It's a good idea. For most people, that's what tattoos are for. To remind you of the good things in life. And the bad, that you have survived. So this is a good one."

Jemima could see Harry nodding by her other side, but not saying anything. She had sort of hinted at how bad her anxiety and depression had sometimes been, but never said it straight out. Well, now it was out and there was nothing she could do about that. It actually felt kind of good to have gotten it off her chest. She had realized when she told him about Jack, that she really didn't want to hide anything from him. That it felt good that he knew all sides of her, even the bad ones.

Twenty minutes later, Zayn was done with the tattoo and he wrapped it up with some plastic and tape, telling her to put some lotion on it every day for two weeks. She looked at the very red silhouette of the stag, through the plastic, and smiled to herself. She really had wanted this and she was glad she'd been brave enough to go through with it.

Harry and Zayn went over to a small counter, so that Harry could pay for it all. Jemima didn't mean to eavesdrop, but from what she heard, it seemed like Zayn didn't really want the money, but Harry was insisting to pay at least a little for it. She felt even better about the whole thing, knowing he hadn't spent too much money on her. That definitely wasn't the point of it all.

They left and decided to get lunch at a taco-place down the street. Jemima insisted on paying for them both, said it was the least she could do. They were both in a great mood, giggling like little girls about the most stupid things. Jemima thought that, yes, this really was what having a best friend felt like.

"I have something to tell you", Harry suddenly said, suddenly a little more serious, but still smiling, although a bit more nervously now. He dragged the suspension out a bit longer that he had to, and then said:

"We are probably going to get signed."

"Are you serious?" Jemima almost got a bite of her burrito stuck in her throat, put quickly recovered. "How? When?"

"Yeah", Harry rested his chin in his hand, elbow resting on the table. She could see the smile behind his fingers getting bigger and bigger. "There was this guy from a magazine that came to see us and he liked us so much, he made some calls to a friend and… yeah. I was so nervous and I didn't want to tell you or anyone else before we were sure, but now… It looks like it's going to happen."

"That is amazing! And you should have told me. I could have been nervous with you. Seriously, you should tell me everything. I want to know."

He nodded and she could feel, like it was sparking electricity between them, how happy he was. He hadn't exactly told her straight out before, but she now understood just how much this meant to him. She leaned back in her chair and raised her glass with orange juice.

"Well, cheers! To you and your band. May all your dreams come true."

They laughed and he hit her glass slightly with his. After a few minutes, he finished his last bite of enchilada and looked at her.

"What about you?"

"Huh?"

"What are your dreams? What do you want to be when you grow up?" He looked a little more serious than she would have liked him to.

"Me… I want to be an astronaut", she joked, but then realized she had to actually give him an honest answer. "I would like to be an author. I want to go to Trinity College in Dublin and learn to write, properly. And then I want to write books. But that is in a made up dream-world and in the real one I would like to one day own my own bookshop or work in a huge, amazing library."

Harry completely ignored the ones she had actually been realistic about and of course got stuck on the ones she knew was never going to happen. It had all taken a very serious turn and she really didn't want to talk about it anymore.

"Why would that only be in a dream-world?" he asked. "You write, don't you? Why could you not write proper books? And go to Trinity College, if you want that?"

"Because I wouldn't have anything to write about. If you haven't noticed, I'm really boring. I don't do anything and I haven't experienced anything. I would write the world's most boring stories. And with Trinity… I just can't. It's too far away and I… I'm a coward."

"You're not boring", he said, quietly, suddenly sounding like he also wanted to leave this conversation behind and talk about something else. "And you're quite brave. I mean, you did go through with that", he added, sounding more cheerful, pointing at her wrapped up wrist.

She held it up and flexed her embarrassingly small bicep on that arm. They both stared laughing again and the tension that had been there seconds before, was gone.

"By the way", she said, suddenly remembering something. "Can you come with me shopping on Saturday? I need to find something for my sister's baby shower."

"And you think I'm the best person for that?" he looked at her, doubtful.

"Well, you are my best friend", she stuck out her tongue to him. "Well, kind of my only friend."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Jemima hurried down the street, to the café they had decided to meet in. She immediately spotted Harry, who had decided to sit outside, since it was the last day of April and quite warm. He wore both his hat and sunglasses, looking exactly as hung over as Jemima knew he was. The band had decided to go out and celebrate their almost-record deal and, as expected, it had been quite a night.

Jemima almost skipped over to him, gloating with the fact that she was well rested and in a great mood, because of the four new books she had just purchased and now carried in her handbag.

"You look awful", she said, casually, when she sat down opposite him at the small table. "And you stink", she added as she had come a little too close to him when she pulled her chair in closer to the table. "Did you guys have fun?"

"Fuck you, Mary Poppins", he said, his voice deep and raspy. He couldn't prevent himself from giving her one of his cheeky half-smiles and leaned back in his chair.

She laughed at his comment and said:

"Well, at least babysitting doesn't end in…" she waves her hand to again imply that he looked more than a little worse for wear. "Anyway, what do you want to eat? Bacon maybe? Sausage?"

Harry made a noise like he was going to throw up, only half joking. Jemima decided she was going to have pancakes. Lots and lots of pancakes with fruit, whipped cream and caramel topping. She felt she somehow had to congratulate herself on being a good, responsible young adult, who didn't feel the want or need to ever get completely wasted. Harry ordered some scrambled eggs, without anything on the side, and a large cup of plain, black coffee.

"So where are we going for the shopping, then? Oxford Street?" Harry asked, mouth full of eggs.

"No!" Jemima answered, horrified. "I hate Oxford Street. Too much stress and people. I feel like I can't breathe, any time I'm forced to go there. Covent Garden, maybe? They have a Disney Store and cute little shops where we could find something for the baby. Although… I'm honestly not sure they're going to let you through the doors, seeing the state of you."

He kicked her leg a little under the table.

They ate their lunch, making small talk about what the boys had been up to the night before. There seemed to have been a lot of strange events that even Harry couldn't really make sense of. First, Niall had tried to start the night off by quoting the guy from The Hangover, saying something about how they were a pack of wolves. Jemima had to bend over double in her chair because she was laughing so much. That was such a typical thing for Niall to do. At a later point in the night, they had been at the door of an old English teacher of some guy they had met, demanding that he would now get the B- he deserved, on a paper he wrote twelve years ago. Harry couldn't really explain how that had happened, since he only remembered short pieces of it all.

When they were done and Harry looked a little bit less green, they made their way to Covent Garden. Jemima had always loved it there, especially in the spring and summer. She always had to wander the small shops and the market, the Whittard's tea shop being a favourite. She could an hour, just smelling the teas and trying to choose which ones she needed to add to her already excessive collection at home. Today though, that wasn't really an option, since Harry's hangover didn't seem to appreciate it. He patiently waited outside for her, while she tried to make the very important decision of tea, in record-breaking time.

The Disney Store did let them both in, contrary to Jemima's predictions. They walked around, picked things up and put them down again. It was crazy how much the brand priced some things. But Georgie and Ben were complete Disney-nerds and it was pretty much compulsory to welcome their child with something accordingly.

"What about this?" Harry held up a pretty ugly stuffed animal, of the Beast from Beauty and the Beast.

Jemima laughed and shook her head. She loved Beauty and the Beast, but that doll was just too terrifying for a little baby. It would get nightmares. After trying to decide a stuffed animal for way too long, she had narrowed it down to a Simba and a Stitch. She had already chosen a little romper with Thumper on and an adorable little bottle with Minnie and Mickey. But she did want a cuddly toy too.

And then she saw it. The perfect one. It wasn't as big as the other ones, but it was the one. Jemima's uncle had given her, her first ever stuffed animal. It had big quite a small little Piglet, and she had always loved it. She still had it in her bookshelf in her old room in her parent's house. This one was almost identical and for a second, she got a little too emotional about it all.

Harry seemed to notice.

"You okay?" He said, sounding a little worried about her overwhelmed facial expression.

She nodded, then laughed at herself for being so silly. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just… I'm just very excited about becoming an aunty, okay. So don't tease me."

"I'm not", he smiled, apparently still finding it quite hilarious.

"Stop it!" Jemima gave his arm a slight push and the went to get her little Piglet.

She paid and they left the shop. For a little while, they just stood there, not really knowing what to do or where to go next, since they had finished their one errand.

"So, what do you want to do now?" Jemima asked Harry. "Probably just go home and sleep, right?"

"Nah, I'm fine. And I definitely don't want to go home. Niall invited Maisie over. It's not… It's not very fun to be home at the same time as those two."

Jemima laughed. Maisie was the waitress, aka Niall's date, with whom he now spent a very large amount of time with, having a lot of very loud sex. Jemima had had the pleasure of being in the boy's flat and suddenly hearing them go at it through the wall. But she had also gotten to meet Maisie, when she had her clothes on, and realized that she was actually a really kind and funny person.

After a little while, Jemima and Harry went home to her's. They didn't have a plan or anything, so they just ended up lying side by side on her bed, since the sofa was too small for them both to sit comfortably in. They made some small talk at first, but after about four minutes of lying down, Harry admitted he was actually really tired. Jemima picked up a book, so she could convince him it really was okay for him to fall asleep. He did so, pretty much as soon as he closed his eyes. Jemima watched his completely relaxed face for a little while, thinking how nice it was to have a friend you could just fall asleep beside. With most friends, you always had to keep the conversation going or do something exciting together. It was only with a very small amount of them, that you could actually take a nap, without it feeling rude. You could exist beside each other, with each other, but not necessarily do the same thing.

When she had read about ten pages in her book, she could barely hold her eyes open and only had time to put a bookmark where she was, before she was asleep too.

The next time she opened her eyes, all she saw was black fabric. She blinked a few times and realized that she must have moved in her sleep so that her face was resting against Harry's shoulder. She backed away a little, and her movement woke him up too. He looked at her, their eyes meeting. She smiled a little, like you do when you wake up next to a friend. Harry moved a little and before she was really aware of what was happening, his lips were on hers. They rested there for a second, Jemima's thoughts still not really comprehending. Then they finally caught up to the situation and half backed away herself and half pushing him away.

"What are you doing?" she said, no emotions, just really wanting to know what had just happened.

"Sorry", Harry said, at the same time, looking like he wasn't too sure either. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…"Jemima sat up. "It's… it's okay. Just don't… don't do that, please."

"No, I'm sorry."

They both just sat there, for a little while, not looking at each other. Everything felt awkward and weird and neither of them seemed to know what to say. After a few minutes of complete silence, Harry finally said:

"I think I should probably go home now."

He got up from the bed, turning his back to Jemima, who was nodding slightly at what he had just said. He was out the front door, before she had even realized he'd left the room.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Jemima was cleaning, the whole flat, from floor to ceiling. She ripped out everything from every cupboard in the kitchen, threw things that had gone long past their eat-by date, cleaned off the surfaces and put everything in, in a nice order that calmed her. Cleaning was the best thing to do when she was stressed or anxious, it made her feel at ease and like she at least had something that she could control.

Why had Harry kissed her? She kind of hated him for ruining everything, and at the same time she just felt very, very sad. This wasn't what she wanted, she told herself, over and over again. She did not want their friendship ruined and she didn't want anything else either. Why did people always have to make the simple complicated?

In the late afternoon, Jemima was going crazy with the hoover. She had her earplugs in, listening to her happy music, dancing along, while she pushed the hoover around the flat. In a more quiet part of the song, she thought she heard a bell ringing. She took out one earplug and listened, but there was nothing, so she continued. A few seconds later, there it was again, and this time it really was the doorbell. She went to the buzzer, expecting it to be her neighbour, who always left his keys.

"Hello," she answered.

"Hi."

It was him. Well, he probably just wanted to say sorry, that it had been a mistake and that it was best if they just ignored it and everything should go back to normal. Of course, that's what he was going to say. _Stop being such an immature kid, Jemima_ , she told herself angrily. _It was just a kiss._

"Hi, I'll let you in." she said. She leaned her back against the wall, trying to get her nerves under control. It was all going to go back to normal soon.

Two minutes later, there was a knock on the door, right beside her. She took one last deep breath before she opened it.

Harry looked about as nervous as she felt. This was hopefully not going to be as awkward as they both feared.

"Hi," he said. "Can I come in?"

Jemima realized she was completely blocking the way in and moved aside. He walked inside and she followed him. He sat down on the back of the sofa, looking down at the floor. Jemima leaned against the kitchen counter, her arms crossed, without her even realizing it.

"I wanted to talk to you," he said quietly, without looking at her. "I was thinking about yesterday and how you said before that you really didn't want a relationship or anything. And I thought I could do that. I mean, just be friends with you. And that's what I was going to say now, but… But I can't." He almost whispered the last words.

"What?" Jemima said, a little more anger in her voice than she had intended.

 _This isn't happening,_ she thought. _This is not supposed to happen._

"I am in love with you," Harry said, now looking straight at her. She felt like he was burning a hole right through her and everything they had shared together just fell apart. When he first said it, the same exact moment, he had looked so hopeful. But as soon as he saw her immediate reaction, that there was absolutely no chance of this ending well, it changed completely. He sounded a little panicked when he continued:

"I can't pretend that I'm not, anymore. And I'm really sorry, I didn't mean for it."

Jemima couldn't believe what she was hearing. Well, actually, she could. Not specifically that he was in love with her, but that someone in a boy-girl friendship decided to ruin it all. She had hoped that cliché wouldn't be true with them, but apparently, that was exactly what was happening.

"How long?" she asked. She couldn't hide how disappointed or angry she was. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, a quiet voice shouted at her that this really wasn't his fault and that she was being mean, but she ignored it completely.

"I don't know", Harry tried, but she gave him a look that said he better remember then and answer her question honestly. "I mean… I liked you from the start. But then you said you didn't want anything like that and I decided that at least we could be friends. But then… It didn't work."

"Oh! So here I've been, thinking I could share things with you and that I had an actual FRIEND. And the whole time you've just wanted to get me into bed?" She felt betrayed. Like he had just pretended a whole friendship.

"What? No! Not like that. It's not like that."

"Well, I actually believed that two people could actually be real friends, without ever throwing the fact that they have two different kinds of genetalia into it all. But I guess you've just proved that to be wrong."

"Jemima, stop that", Harry was getting less sorry about it all and more angry. "That's not what I'm saying. I did not plan for this from the start, it JUST HAPPENED!"

"Sure! So when I specifically told you I did not like people that way and didn't want anyone to feel that way about me, you just decided that you were going to be different I would change my mind? Don't you see how fucking mean that is. To expect that from me, when I made everything clear right from the start. I don't want you. I never did."

"Like I said, I thought I could be your friend and the part of me liking you in that way would go away eventually. But it hasn't and I can't not say anything about it anymore." He stood up and she backed away from him. She didn't want to be anywhere close to him and he looked like he felt the same about her. "And it's not all about you, Jemima. You don't get to make all the rules. You can't decide how I'm supposed to feel. It doesn't fucking work that way."

"No, maybe it doesn't. But I can decide who I want in my life and who I don't. And you just can't be here if that's the way you feel."

They had been basically screaming at each other, one as angry as the other. But when she said that, Harry went quiet. She could see how much she had hurt him, but she couldn't change her mind. That was how it all started. The losing yourself and not knowing what was you and what was your crazy, stupid feelings.

"Well, then I'm out", was the last thing Harry said, before he walked out the room, slamming the front door shut.

Jemima didn't know what to do. For days, she went through life in a sort of vacuum. She knew she had hurt Harry, bad. And she missed him. She missed her best friend.

But then she remembered that he wasn't really her friend. Well, he was, but since he wanted more, he couldn't be. It was this kind of mess she had wanted to avoid. To depend on someone, someone whom in the end had to choose themselves and she could only follow or be alone.

So she had chosen to be alone. That was what she had promised herself, when everything had gone to hell last time. She couldn't be so weak that she fell down this hole again. She had to just walk through it all and she would come out okay on the other side.

The days at work passed too quickly. There, she could focus on what she was supposed to do and not think about the mess she had waiting for her when she came home. The mess that was her, walking around the flat, not being able to read a book, because her mind couldn't be focused on one thing for more than five minutes. She cleaned, obsessively, every millimetre of the flat. She was lonely and sometimes found herself cursing out loud, over the fact that Harry had ruined everything.

She had been fine before. She hadn't felt lonely, but actually content with her little life. It might not have seemed like much to others, but to her it had been just enough. She had been happy working in a place she loved, reading amazing books and getting totally lost in them. She didn't need too many people in her life, because they did just this; cause messes.

Jemima went to her sister's baby shower. She didn't enjoy it. She had been looking forward to it, just days earlier. But now her sister's friends annoyed her, she didn't want to talk to anyone and she hated that those friends for some reason had decided that the baby, with a still unknown sex, was a girl. They had bought a lot of pink and Jemima hated them all and wondered why people always had to buy pink for a girl and blue for a boy. It was just stupid.

When she came home that night, she decided that if she ever had a baby, it would have a unisex name and always wear just black.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

A few days after the very upsetting baby shower, Jemima was once again invited to her sister's home, this time for a dinner. She had passed her angry stage of it all and had now gone over to anxious and sad. The way up to North Harrow felt longer than it ever had before. Jemima tried to ignore it, but the whole day, the huge lump in her chest had been burning and swelling, making it hurt with every breath she took. The logical, still reasonable, part of her brain knew there wasn't really anything there. But it had not managed to convince all of her and she felt like the lump was going to explode with every movement she made.

She had been through this before. She was used to handling it, when it was just about stupid things. But even though the actions that caused this lump was probably the most stupid she'd ever been herself, it didn't feel like a stupid problem. It felt like it was the end of the world.

Jemima arrived at Georgie and Ben's house half an hour after she was expected, which wasn't like her at all. Georgie looked surprised when she opened the door.

"Hi, sweetie," she greeted Jemima and let her in. Sometimes Jemima suspected that her sister actually knew her better than she did herself and to prove that, Georgie, out of nowhere gave her a huge, warm hug, which lasted just a little bit longer than if it would have just been a hello-hug. "How are you?"

"I'm okay," Jemima mumbled, knowing fully well that Georgie wouldn't believe that for a second. But her sister still knew her boundaries and didn't ask any further questions. Jemima put on a happier face, (like she was going to fool anyone) and said in a cheerful voice:

"How are you? And how's my little niece or nephew, that is soon going to come out and be the most gorgeous and brilliant baby the world's ever seen?" She said that last bit, entirely directed at Georgie's big bump and leaned down to give it a kiss.

Some people might think that was a weird thing to do, so casually. But Georgie was the only person Jemima had ever felt completely comfortable to show that kind of physical, sisterly love to, and when the bump came along, he or she was also included.

Ben came out of the kitchen, looking a bit dishevelled and sweaty, probably from standing by the stove, cooking. He gave Jemima a big hug and pressed a piece of some sort of bread into her mouth, without warning her. It was lukewarm and when she bit into it, noticed there was melted cheese and sundried tomatoes in the middle of it.

"Ben, that's amazing!" she shouted, mouth full and holding her hand in front of it, so it wouldn't go everywhere.

"Well, thank you," he said, in an overly pompous voice, while he took her coat off her shoulders and hung it up by the door. "The food is just ready and I'm starving, so come on."

The dinner went by and Jemima managed to hold a decent conversation of small talk and probably seem okay. She reasoned that maybe Georgie would think it was just her usual anxiety, the one that she can handle and that, in some circumstances, just went away when she was in good company, thinking about something else.

But it turned out, that wasn't the case. After the dessert, Georgie was washing the dishes and Jemima helped her dry it, with a towel that got soaked through by the second plate. Georgie stopped, with her hands in the dishwater, looked at Jemima and asked in a worried voice:

"Mimes, what's going on?"

Jemima only had to take one look at her sister and couldn't keep it together any longer. The tears burst out of her with force and she had to bend over to be able to breathe. Georgie dropped a glass in the sink with a splash and hurried over to Jemima. She pulled her up so she could properly hold her, but even then, the bump got between them, making it quite an awkward hug.

"Come here, sit down," she led the mess that was Jemima to the wooden sofa by the table and sat them down. Then she put her arms around her sister again, pressing her as hard against herself as she could. Jemima hugged her back, while she cried and cried, making a wet stain of tears and probably snot, on Georgie's sweater. They stayed like that until she felt she could possibly be able to speak again and explain all of it. She straightened up and dried her eyes and nose on some tissue paper. Georgie watched her, patient and worried.

"He… He said he loved me", was all Jemima could get out, with the fear of the crying starting all over again if she continued the sentence.

"Who?" Georgie asked, even though she probably suspected who it was. There weren't a lot of candidates that would fit into this unexpected turn of events and make such a mess out of her sister.

"Harry! Who else? He kissed me… and then… and then he left and came back the next day and…" Jemima lost the ability to speak again, as the tears rose and the lump she thought had exploded, moved up into her throat. Georgie pulled her head gently against her shoulder and patted her head.

"Hey", she said, trying to sound cheerful. "What's so bad about Harry being in love with you? Isn't that kind of amazing."

Jemima sat up straight and gave her a bewildered look. She might actually have lost it this time. Her anxiety and weirdness and need of control might actually have made her brain have a complete meltdown and made her crazy.

"Yes, IT IS!" she almost yelled. "And I have completely ruined EVERYTHING! I thought, like I really thought I didn't want that and I was a complete arse to him when he told me and I told him I wanted nothing to do with him. I think he even cried when he left and I just stood there, like a fucking heartless monster."

"Oh, dear!"

Jemima and Georgie both turned towards the door, where Ben stood, looking a little bit guilty. "Sorry", he said. "I didn't mean to listen, but… I mean, I was in the next room and you two are not exactly quiet."

Both Jemima and Georgie managed to laugh a little at that and Georgie waved to him to come sit down with them. He sat on the other side of Jemima and she was suddenly mashed in a sandwich of hugs and love. And for the first time in days, she actually felt okay.

"So", Ben said a little while later, when he had taken out the cheesecake they had had for dessert, from the fridge again. They were all eating straight from the plate, which Georgie had insisted was the only way to do it when you had boy trouble. "What are we going to do about this whole mess, Mimes?"

Jemima had her mouth full of cheesecake and a big scoop on her spoon, ready. She shook her head and jokingly made a big deal out of finishing all of it, before she answered.

"Can't I just go dig myself into a hole somewhere and like, preserve myself. And then I can come up when everyone alive now is dead and maybe I'll be more normal then."

"Hey! You are great as you are now", Georgie protested, with a pig piece of cake in her mouth. "You just made a mistake and all you have to do is fix it."

"But how? He's not going to want to talk to me. Seriously, I was REALLY mean, Georgie."

"If he really loves you, he'll forgive you. Maybe not right away, but if you're really sure about this and show him that, he'll forgive you eventually." Ben said, seriously this time. "Come on, I'll drive you to his house right now." He started to get up from the sofa.

Jemima pulled him down again. "What? Are you crazy? I can't go now!"

"Why not?" Ben challenged her.

"Because I have no idea what I'm going to say. I don't even know what it is I want. And whatever that turns out to be, I probably won't be able to say it. Like, sometimes when I'm nervous or like I'll be with him, totally petrified, I physically cannot speak. You know that, Georgie."

"Yeah, but I think eight grade English presentation and this, are two very different things. I actually think Ben is right; you should do talk to him, as soon as possible, so you don't miss your chance. You'll regret it." Her sister apparently wasn't going to help at all.

Jemima just laughed at them in some kind of panic, but when she saw their serious faces, she stopped. "Are you guys actually serious? I can't do that."

"Sure you can. It might be scary and awkward and maybe not go exactly as you plan. But you have to do things like that sometimes, so you can come out happier, on the other side of them." Georgie looked at her, like she was somehow summing up the whole of Jemima's existence in those few sentences. And Jemima knew she was right. She knew she had always lived in the comfort of her own frame, and the two times she had stepped out of it, it had ended in total catastrophe. She didn't want that to happen again. She wouldn't be able to handle it. But she knew Georgie was right.

So she made a quick choice, before she could change her mind. "Okay!" she said, out loud.

The other two looked shocked, but they recovered as fast as they could, probably so she wouldn't back out. Ben got up from the sofa.

"Come on then, Mimes", he said, halfway out in the hallway.

Jemima got up and tried not to think of what she was about to do. This wasn't a situation to go head first into, as she usually did, and plan what she should say. This was a heart first kind of mission, which was a whole lot scarier, but at the same time gave her the kind of adrenaline kick only un-planned things can give you.

"Wait!" she suddenly remembered. "He's in Brighton."

"What?" Ben looked totally confused, as if she had said Harry had travelled to the moon.

"His band is playing there tonight and staying overnight", she explained. "Well, that's that then."

She felt both relieved and quite upset at the same time. She wasn't sure she was going to feel this brave any other day and actually be able to go through with it.

"What are you talking about? We'll just go to Brighton, then."

Georgie had finally been able to get up from the sofa and joined them.

"You really should go", she said. "But, Mimes… I think you'll want to look in a mirror before you go."

Jemima turned around, to the one hanging on the wall behind her. She couldn't help but laugh when she was herself. She had mascara down her cheeks and was all red and puffy.

"Hey, come here", Georgie said, already walking towards the stairs. "I'll help you."

They spent about fifteen minutes, taking off all the mascara, trying to make the redness and puffiness go away and then applying some new make-up. Not too much, of course, just something to make her look like she'd had more sleep in the last week than she actually had. Georgie called it a "go get the guy"-look, which both Jemima and Ben made a face at.

Then they got in the car and started their journey toward Brighton. Georgie decided she would stay home, since being heavily pregnant had changed her from a complete night-owl to being ready to fall asleep at about eight at night. Jemima had addresses to where the band was playing and to where they were going to stay the night. She had gotten them both weeks ago, since she was supposed to have been with them.

Her and Ben were almost completely quiet during the whole ride. He had started the radio, a channel that played old 80's classics. At one point, Chris Isaac's song _Wicked Game_ came on. Jemima had always loved music, the way that most people do. But she had not been one of those people who can cry because they relate so much to a song. Now she did and she tried to hide it from Ben, who sung along quietly, by looking out the window, silent tears going down her cheeks. She didn't care if her make-up was ruined again. She knew Harry would not care. Either he would forgive her or he wouldn't, but a little mascara around her eyes would not have anything to do with that.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

When Jemima and Ben arrived in Brighton, it was about half past eleven. She had no idea if the band had finished playing yet, so they first went to the little venue where the gig was supposed to be. Bu they had no luck there, seeing a man lock up the place, when they pulled up in front of the building.

"I could call Niall", Jemima said, feeling more and more like this was going to fail. What if she couldn't get a hold of him. Then she'd have to call Harry and God only knew if he would ever pick up the phone for her again. She didn't have Louis' or Liam's numbers. So she tried Niall first.

"Hiya!" He sounded a little bit drunk and a lot more Irish than usual, when he fortunately picked up the phone, after just a few signals.

"Hi, Niall", Jemima started. She wasn't exactly sure what to say now. She realized that Harry was going to be with him, and was more than likely way past the whole drama with her and now having the time of his life with some tall, blonde, less complicated girl. And if that was the case, she realized, she really didn't want to know. But she had to. "Niall, is Harry with you?"

"No", he said, immediately, and Jemima feared the worst. He had probably gone off with said girl already, doing things that made Jemima's stomach turn into a hard knot, just thinking about it.

"He said he didn't feel like going out after the gig", Niall continued. "So he's gone off to where we're staying tonight. I guess he's got his phone if you want to call him."

"Oh", was all Jemima could say. The relief was almost overwhelming. "No… I'm actually here in Brighton."

"Oh, okay…" Niall said, sounding a little bit shocked. "Hey… just… He told me what happened. And I'm not here to judge or anything, but please… Be nice to him."

"I… yeah. I will." Jemima said and hung up the phone. She had no idea what else to say to Niall. Although he was her friend too, he was going to be there for Harry and she didn't want to make any promises she would not be able to hold. She still hadn't really decided what she wanted to say.

Ben looked at her and without saying anything, asking where they were going. She told him the address she had gotten, to the house that belonged to Liam's friend. She really hoped that the friend or anyone other than Harry would be there. She was not okay with having this conversation In front of some stranger.

They pulled up outside the house, twenty minutes later, after just one wrong turn and one way where they'd had to turn around, because directions they were following didn't show that there would be roadwork going on in one place. Jemima didn't get out of the car, just sat and looked straight ahead, not being able to move herself from point A to B. After a little while, Ben cleared his throat.

"Are you actually going to do this or is this the furthest you'll go?" He didn't sound impatient, just like he was honestly wondering.

"Yeah, I'm working on it."

"Okay." He was quiet for a second, then asked: "What's really the worst that can happen? Because I think the worst part is probably already over and all you have to do now is patch it all up."

"But I still don't know what to say", Jemima almost whispered. "I have no idea how I feel and I don't want to hurt him even more."

"You'll figure it out when you see him. Trust me."

And with that, Ben leaned over her and opened the door on her side. He clicked open her seatbelt and gestured for her to get out of the car. When she did, he said:

"Wait! Don't feel like you're in a rush or anything, I'm waiting right here. But if you decide to… to stay the night, please text me, so I know and can go home."

She gave him a look that clearly said there would be no chance of her staying the night, and then turned towards the door. She pressed the doorbell before she could chicken out, and turned her head and looked at Ben with panic. He just smiled overly enthusiastic and waved at her.

The door suddenly opened. Harry looked like he'd seen a ghost, once he saw her.

"Hi", she said, after a few seconds of them just staring at each other. "Can I come in?"

He let her in, without a word. She couldn't tell if he was just shocked to see her, or so angry that he didn't want to speak. She came directly into a small living room, with mattresses all over the floor and a sofa made up as a bed. Jemima looked around for a second, considering where it would be best for be while she delivered whatever it was that she way going to. She took a little too long to decide, and Harry gave her a look like he was urging he to start explaining why she had turned up there, in the middle of the night.

"I needed to talk to you", she began, after finally deciding to stand, just as she was, in the middle of the room.

"Okay…" He didn't sound too angry, but not like he was about to jump with joy either. He waited for her to continue.

"I'm sorry", was all she could think of. And suddenly, how she was going to solve this situation, just came to her. Looking at him, she finally knew what she wanted. "I really am sorry, for what I said." Her voice sounded louder this time, and more assured. "It was not okay and I was mean and wrong and I am sorry. I don't want us to fight."

He looked at her, his face slowly softening. "It's okay. Everyone says stupid shit when they're upset. Really, that's no big deal." He was quiet for a second and then said, a little more tense again:

"But the thing is… You say you don't want us to fight. And I don't want that either. But I don't think I can really be your friend like before, since you "don't feel the same way as I do…"

"But I do!" The words came out of Jemima's mouth, before she even had a chance to think them over. "I do. Or I could."

Harry looked confused.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I could feel that way about you. I think I'm well on my way to doing so. I just… haven't really allowed myself to during these past months, so I think… I think I would just have to take things slow. If you want to, of course." She added quietly.

Harry didn't answer. Instead he sat down on the sofa, pulled his legs up and hugged them with his arms. He didn't look at her, but she could tell from his facial expression that a million thoughts were going through his head. She sat down, in front of him, nervously playing with the edge of the rug with her toes, while waiting for him to answer. When he didn't, she turned to him, leaning her chin on his knees, so that her face was suddenly very close to his. She looked at him, trying to get him to understand that she was being completely serious.

"I want this", she said. "I really do. I just need to kind of find my balance in it, so I know I am still me, all the way through it. Do you understand where I'm coming from?"

He nodded, finally looking at her. And for the first time that night, he smiled at her.

"I do. And I think taking it slow sounds like… It sounds like a good idea."

She smiled back at him.

"And that thing I said", he continued. "About being in love with you… You really don't have to day that back until you're completely ready. And I won't say it either. Just… Just know that I do, okay?"

She nodded. That she could live with. His expression suddenly changed a little, giving her that half-smile she had missed so much.

"Can I please kiss you now?" he said, suddenly sounding like a child that's been waiting patiently for cake for too long.

She laughed and when she nodded, he did.

After, she didn't know how long, of kissing, Jemima felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. She ignored it and continued exploring Harry's mouth and neck with her own. It was not like she'd thought it would be, very much not like kissing someone who was just your best friend. The phone stopped, but seconds later it started to buzz again. She picked it up and looked at it. Ben's name and face was on the screen. She probably wouldn't have picked it up for anyone else, right this moment, but since he was sitting in the car outside, waiting for her, she had to.

"Hello…" she answered.

"It's coming. Georgie just called me and her water broke and the baby is coming!"

Jemima hung up the phone. She looked at Harry's confused face and almost shouted:

"I have to go! The baby is coming." She gave him one last, quick kiss, before she ran out the door,


End file.
